*VISIONS*_*

Uch Sharif, Pakistan

A man kneels by a humble mud tomb, shadowed by ruins of Sufi shrines.

Wracked by floods nearly 200 years ago, the shrines were once the heart of a famed center of Islamic learning.

 

 

Namib-Naukluft Par, Namibia

Late afternoon sun silhouettes dead acacia trees against a backdrop of sand dunes.

In this park on southern Africa's west coast, the dunes rise as high as a thousand feet (305 meters) from the desert floor.

 

 

Ningaloo Marine Park, Western Australia

A banded toadfish hides among the coral on 185-mile-long (298 kilometers) Ningaloo Reef.

Branching skin growths help camouflage the foot-long (0.3 meter) fish from both predator and prey.

 

 

Catalonia, Spain

Young people in oversize papier-mâché heads pause in a blooming field on the way to a summer festival in the town of Banyoles.

Called capgrossos in Catalan, the big heads are often worn on feast days.

 

 

Pike National Forest, Colorado

A constellation of blazes dots Grouse Mountain. The fire, which scorched more than 2,300 acres (931 hectares) in a week in April, was the first major fire of

Colorado's 2002 season, the state's worst on record.

 

 

Tehran, Iran

A target labels the building where students train with firearms at the Kowsar Female Police Academy.

Female police officers in Iran deal mostly with crimes involving women.

 

 

South Georgia Island

An elephant seal relaxes in a shallow pool along the shores of Stromness Bay, 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) east of Tierra del Fuego in the South Atlantic Ocean.